Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

-----we do not engage. There are many things we could all do illegally to make money. However, the point is that people should not be doing things illegally and making money on things that are not just illegal on paper, but illegal on core human rights and international law. They are illegal and costing lives. Therefore, that is a reasonable bar to set ourselves in terms of how business is done. In this part, it is around how this State engages in business. It is about having a bar where we do not engage, support and invest in businesses that are conducting illegal activities in illegally occupied areas and contributing to human rights violations that have been identified as potentially constituting genocide.

That is really important. When we look to settlements, we should recognise that these are matters that are being considered by the International Criminal Court. It is an extraordinary risk and a reasonable bar.

I want to counter something because we are getting contradictions in the messages we are getting. We are being told that as the Bill is before the Oireachtas, the Department did not do anything, yet, at the same time, there was a timed amendment of a year. Why was there a timed amendment of a year if the intention was to not do anything until the Oireachtas dealt with it? Either it should have been allowed to proceed a year ago – it would have been a very good thing to have in place one year ago or six months ago before the current situation unfolded – or there should have been intense work happening in the background over the last year to actually come up with clear measures and mechanisms, including, possibly, a review of the Department’s own strategies. There is a contradiction in that. I would slightly contradict the line that the Department has been waiting and not really doing anything about divestment until the Oireachtas decides. This has been on the cards longer than this Bill. I am a co-sponsor of the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill, which has been before the Oireachtas for many years. That Bill does not say that we should make a statement and a point by punishing anyone; it simply states it is illegal to trade with any occupied territory. You cannot have a trade agreement that includes areas which a country does not actually own. You cannot trade with areas that are illegally occupied and have the illegal occupier making money out of it. That is our Bill, which has been there a long time, yet the Department has not decided to pause any activities during the period that Bill has been before the Oireachtas, as it still is. In fact, we have seen the intensification of continuing to make investments. It is really important to call that out. I am not attempting to redirect attention from the Bill that is before us today, but we need to be honest. It is not business as usual but, rather, business more than usual. We have seen from the dual use goods reports that dual use has increased from €11 million to €70 million, for example. We see it in the investments being made here. That contributes to, and is partly responsible for, the situation we see now, where there has been a culture of absolute impunity and the idea that international law does not apply to Israel’s actions, as well as the fact that it has not had to defend itself economically and has not faced pressure to comply with international law. It has not been subject to any of these instruments. Again, these are not new instruments and they are not sanctions; it is simply compliance with international law. As the international community, including Ireland, has failed to apply international law in respect of these investments and be clear that we will not be complicit in breaches of it, we have contributed to a culture of impunity and a situation where there is a sense that if that law does not apply, then maybe we do not need to care about all those other laws which we now see being breached every day on our television screens.

I will return to some of the concrete matters. Why is it acceptable that there is an Ireland fund that involves direct scrutiny and so forth, but the global fund is outsourced to these investment companies? Is it the case that, in the context of cluster munitions and the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act, those companies are screening on our behalf? Is it that they just directly do not invest where there are cluster munitions or there are questions in terms of the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act or are they engaging in that same iterative process whereby if many of their investors happen not to like human rights breaches, they might raise it at a shareholder meeting or something? What is the process? Where is the screening for those Bills happening in terms of our global investments? Is it happening in-house? If it is in-house and the Department is looking at companies at a granular level, why has it not been able to look at companies at a granular level in the context of this issue?

Then there is the UN list. It seems clear the Department has two specific issues with that list. One is that list might not be comprehensive and the Department may wish to add something extra. I am sure an amendment to provide that other companies may be added would be accommodated. The other issue raised related to situations where a company may no longer be operating in that way. An amendment specifying that this relates to any company that is on the UN list and still operating within an occupied territory would be a simple screen that could be applied. Would that not be a simple and effective mechanism to allow the witnesses' concerns in this regard to be addressed? Is the Department worried about that being in-house work rather than that which the companies to which it outsources work are doing?